Most businesses concede that someday their contact centers will migrate from their traditional PSTN infrastructures to IP networks. But many of them are reluctant to make the move now. Some don't have a clear vision yet of how VoIP will benefit the business. Others are worried they'll lose the substantial investments they have in PSTN-based systems and applications.

Some companies, on the other hand—like market leader Telerx—have found a way to step forward into the future and, at the same time, leverage past investments. Telerx, a Top 50 customer care service bureau that provides outsourced contact center services, uses Aspect® Uniphi Connect to add VoIP capability to its existing PSTN contact centers. According to Carolynn Chamoun, senior vice president of technology solutions, VoIP is not only well worth implementing; companies can take advantage of it now without losing their investments in legacy systems.

"Cost savings on PSTN toll charges are an obvious benefit," says Chamoun, "but the real advantage to Telerx clients is the ability to maximize resources. Our clients who want to globalize their operations can utilize local contact handling staff in countries where this solution enhances customer loyalty and better supports branding strategies, without the expense of decentralizing contact center technology. They can leverage their investments while extending the benefits of the technology to other regions."

GLOBALIZATION AND VIRTUALIZATION "Many of our clients are looking at globalization," says Chamoun,"but some of them are domestic companies with centralized operations. Uniphi Connect allows for extensibility into another country without requiring redundant infrastructure in that country. So we're able to support a satellite office that has the resiliency of the central data center while leveraging the investments we already have. Or we can drop our technology into a client site and then, using skills-based routing, utilize both Telerx agents and the client's agents as one united pool.And we can make follow- the-sun strategies very cost-effective because our clients can manage dispersed agents from a single ACD.This allows them to get the most out of their capital investments while taking their existing contact centers beyond their physical borders."

"Some of our clients are also looking at shared services and outsourcing," she adds."And VoIP allows us to do that seamlessly.We can centralize some functions and decentralize others and really align with the client's needs." Chamoun also points out that Uniphi Connect gives Telerx access to a valuable labor pool—agents who prefer to work at home."There's a strong work force we can tap into," she says,"by delivering technology cost-effectively and seamlessly to their homes. In some areas,we're able to forge agreements with the telecom carriers to have a level of service delivered to the home that allows us to maintain high voice quality.Aspect has been instrumental in helping us understand the environment we need to make at-home agents work."

MATURE TECHNOLOGY AND A CLEAR VISION OF THE FUTURE Chamoun chose Uniphi Connect based on deep knowledge of contact center systems."I've had experience with other vendors," she says,"and I know the pluses and minuses of their technology. Aspect has mature technology that has quite a bit to offer around resiliency of carrying voice. And since we have Aspect ACDs in place,we were able to implement a VoIP strategy using Uniphi Connect without sacrificing any of the investments we have today.We were able to expand the existing infrastructure fairly seamlessly and achieve a higher quality of voice than we could have with any other vendor."

"Aspect has a good future vision around VoIP, too," she goes on,"but Telerx probably won't move to a pure-IP solution in the near term. There's no immediate reason to change out the Aspect Call Center functionality we have today. It's resilient, it works extremely well, and from a technology standpoint, it won't become obsolete in the near future. But clearly, for future technology as our contact centers expand,we'll be expanding our VoIP strategy as well."

SOUND ADVICE FOR MAKING THE MOVE Chamoun points out that incorporating VoIP requires careful planning and teamwork. "Capacity planning becomes very critical because you're converging both voice and data over your networks," she points out."You're no longer just looking at your ACD.You're also making sure your networks are well-positioned to scale, and you're learning about quality of service for voice. It's also very important that your network infrastructure be very resilient."

With her knowledge of the unique requirements of VoIP, Chamoun made sure the Telerx network was ready for the transition."We worked with Aspect to validate our network infrastructures," she says."We brought in quality-of-service monitoring tools to incorporate on our networks.We isolated the voice networks we had in place and brought in some additional high-end routers.We also looked at our network layout to make sure we had multiple carriers going in so we had dual pathing. If the voice couldn't get out on one of the routes, it could deliver itself on another route. We also took advantage of data circuits that we already had, bonding them together to increase the bandwidth out to the contact center. So from a data network standpoint,we had a really solid infrastructure in place, and we had very good voice quality as well."

A GREAT WAY TO MOVE FORWARD Asked if she would recommend Uniphi Connect to other contact centers, Chamoun says,"If you have Aspect Call Center in place today, I think Uniphi Connect is the right step. It's a costeffective way to move forward. It provides an opportunity to test the technology while having the backup of your existing environment. It allows you to learn in a very safe environment. For new deployments without the ACD in place, I think going to a pure-IP solution makes more sense. But for companies that already have investments in Aspect ACDs, Uniphi Connect is a great way to move forward and start positioning for the future."